drawl of more than thirty thousand troops in afghanistan is one of. the union address controversial issues like america's drug use are ignored by the president. the silence is broken as israeli media shroud of secrecy over the death of an alleged secret agent in custody despite the government trying to keep it quiet. unemployed french men commit suicide by setting himself on far in front of the job center desperate move. it can only problems crippling. the big picture with host thom hartmann here not.

well job market in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture in last night's state of the union president obama argued that now is the time to act on curb climate change and to save our environment for future generations so why are we still considering projects like the keystone x.l. pipeline only furthers our nation's toxic addiction to fossil fuels alaska actress and activist daryl and next also in the days and weeks since the newtown shooting tragedy over a thousand americans have lost their lives to gun violence is anything really going to change when might we see the gun control legislation that this nation so desperately needs and president obama called out republicans last night saying that

deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan that republicans have any real plans to save our economy that and more engine eyes loan liberal rumble. you need to know this in his state of the union address last night president obama took on the quantum of change deniers the fact it's the twelve hottest years on record have all come in the last fifty heat waves droughts wildfires floods all are now more frequent and more intense we can choose to believe that superstorm sandy and the most severe drought in decades and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a frequency that's. or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of

science and act before it's too late though most of us choose science but the issue is what do we do about it it's one thing to pledge a commitment to doing something about climate change is another thing to actually do something about climate change yes there are some specifics for the sake of our children and our future. we must do more to combat climate change so tonight i propose we use some more oil and gas revenues to fund an energy security trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off the world for good i'm also issuing a new goal for america let's cut in here the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next twenty years sounds a good decent start but given the size of the problem and the consequences of not addressing it we should be looking for more than just decent starts we need urgent revolutionary change in how we generate and consume energy in this nation in twenty

years not in ten years now because right now at this rate we're looking at a five degree increase in temperatures over the next century when that last happened two hundred fifty million years ago it triggered an event known as the permian extinction that wiped out ninety five percent of all life on the planet it's happening again and we're doing it to ourselves when the president says we must do this for the sake of our children and our future he is very much not exaggerating so the very very least we need to kick our addiction to dirty oil and coal sort of dirty oil is sucked out of the sand in canada put in a pipeline and shipped here where it's refined and where it chokes out cities in illinois in oklahoma cities in america canada america and billionaires want that same dirty tar sands oil shipped just a little farther south so they can refine it in texas pollute even more americans put it on ships and sell it all over the world except to americans as canada has

oil billionaires in texas want it so they can refine it and ship it all over the world except back to americans and the rest of us just get a massive rickety pipeline cut right down the center of the country that will likely spill a few dozen times over the next few years are going to the keystone x.l. pipeline a pipeline under construction right now in texas a pipeline that will. accelerate our global descent into another permian extinction and a pipeline that the president can halt construction on today the same president who said last night that we must do something about climate change for the sake of our children he can stop it but instead today he watched as police outside his home arrested patriotic americans who themselves are trying to stop the pipeline dozens of environmental leaders tied themselves to the white house gates in protest of the keystone x.l. pipeline among those arrested were actress and activist daryl hannah and the executive director of the sierra club michael brune it both join me now carol

michael pleased to have you with us thanks for joining us darryl what you were on this program a month or so ago when you were arrested with eleanor fairchild down in texas. what what is driving you what's motivating you. i like to live. and i hope that this world will thrive in and they exist beyond my life and that the only way for that really to happen is for us to stop these crazy extreme extraction practices in thought decimating our ecosystems poisoning our water our land our oil our steve and the living systems that we need to survive and michael what's what's the sierra club's take or yours or both. the president on the one hand giving the state of the union address last night and saying essentially enough of the fossil fuels already and then. showing i mean they're actually taking land by eminent domain down of the

axis to build those dam pipeline it's not like it's so it's being debated i mean well that's what this is the great challenge right now is that the president has made two fantastic speeches at the you know gratian and then last night articulating more forcefully than any other president that we have a moral obligation to fight climate change and an economic op. sunidhi when we transition to clean fuels and the president has an enormous amount of executive authority further us down the path of a clean energy future that he's not yet not yet utilized president could stop the keystone x.l. pipeline like that the president can stop article oil drilling like that president doesn't have to allow for liquefied natural gas terminals to be built and instead we can embrace clean energy with open arms and really go all in and displace all these dirty fuels at the same time darryl when you were arrested down in texas with eleanor fairchild. that seem to me like one of those moments that kind of broke

through for a lot of americans can you just quickly recap what happened and how you got down there and what's going on in texas i was down there to support the tar sands blockade which there was an action with a bunch of people who were trying who are actually blocking the construction of the southern leg of the pipeline which was fast tracked by president obama when he put the rest of the pipeline on hold while the election proceeded so so i was down there to show support to them and when i met eleanor and. i came across a bunch of landowners who had had their land taken through eminent domain we were at her house when we heard some of the bulldozers coming through her property and they had taken her her her property bisected her property without her permission and and you know through eminent domain like you said and we went to the south the bulldozers on her land which she still pays taxes for and we were both charged with

trespassing on her own property what's her situation right now she just had a court date and she's going to be showing up at the action on a demonstration on the seventeenth here in d.c. but she just had a court date and you know this. basically was charged with trespassing on her own land. i mean michael if the president just point out the president fast tracked. texas there are every indication other than the rhetorical ones and even those when it comes to keystone x.l. seem to be lacking is that the president's going to approve this of the administration's going to approve this if that happens a how do you think this is going to play out and b. is it possible if they finish building this thing all the way down to texas and then they start refining oil down in texas and and exporting it out of the united states that. as as we you know as we move into renewables as the price of oil changes as people start getting horrified that eventually this may just this may be

an act an anachronism within a decade or within a few years of it is it possible that that could happen that's the case right now and that's why we don't think it'll be built i so look at in november of two thousand and eleven the president said we're going to study this more it's going to take us twelve to fifteen months which is where we're at now since then he's been reelected he never has to run for reelection again since then the price of solar has dropped by another thirty percent the price of wind has continued to decline and he finalized a new rule that will double fuel efficiency across the country so we'll be using millions of barrels of oil less every day every day just because of this one rule so we don't need this pipeline we really don't we actually are going to be using fewer oil than ever before and we're going to be transitioning to clean energy that's not the time when you want to build a new pipeline that's the time to double down on clean what you've got some oil billionaires and begin to cope the koch brothers among you know who own refineries

down in texas and they can dump all their poisons in the air so the people in the easy and east texas get them and they can make a fortune exploit this is canadian oil is cheaper than a lot of other forms of oil so this is relatively inexpensive oil it's profitable to that if they get it to market if they can get to market so so so you have the oil billionaires in one corner and all of us and the other all the millions of americans who believe in a clean energy future who are actually optimists and know that we can solve this challenge was to open it would have had virtually purchase i mean pretty particular the coax everybody in the republican party and a good chunk of the democratic party isn't or in my is am i am i is this hyperbole darrell don't think that's what it that's what it seems like to me as well and that's why i think we need people to start speaking out and showing up and demand. the president keeps asking us to push him he says push me and and it has worked in certain cases it worked with equal marriage rights it worked with immigration

reform we need to push him on this claim he says he will take action on the climate crisis but we need to push him to do that we need to tell him that this is what we want because i think now he may not be worried about reelection but he is going to be worried about his legacy and the fact is that you know you have even china they just built a wind terminal in mongolia that is big enough to power the into an entire country the size of poland and we have the tools at our disposal to move into a clean energy private prosperous future and we need to start doing that and it's just really the with the will to do it we need to insist he take the actions that he talks about. and on sunday will do that so many of your viewers and listeners will be with us on sunday on the national mall the largest climate rally in u.s. history and part of what we're going to be saying is that we're using less oil than

we were five years ago we're using less coal than we were five years ago a lot of that is because of grassroots activism in towns and cities all across the country people are turning away from fossil you fossil fuels and embracing clean energy we're using five times as much solar now than we were at the beginning of the first term of the president twice as much wind as we were at the beginning of the first term of obama and the question is do we accelerate that progress or do we spend seven more billion dollars on this pipeline billions more on new fracking infrastructure or do we realize that we shouldn't be making climate change worse michael thank you both for the great work you're doing for our programming so much more. coming up but last year's billion dollar plus presidential campaign was all thanks to the supreme court's citizens united decision in two thousand and ten on the. earlier this week it cost issue a man it was introduced in congress that would overturn that decision play all about it right after the break.

my juggling jog. and do hack work and get caught when lobbyists money and lawmakers are combined together that's where the problem of corruption comes from. i don't know the document's. keep up a smart look. there is also. another word behind that which is how to influence things situations steer clear of provocations don't answer any question. came into the office

and found banners hanging around the office and lots of strange faces around someone and said what was happening was somebody please tell me what's going on and they said oh we've come to occupy your building. possibly they want to do a confrontation possibly they wanted me to ring up the police to have the police come in through the mount that. didn't seem to be a good idea to learn the european way with brussels business and in the crossing it's one person one fold but in brussels business it's one euro one fault choose your language. we kill it oh if the details and i say sell some of the. treatments that the consensus you can. choose to give to us that immigrate to. choose the stories that impact the life choose the access to your office.

download the official application to choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television or it just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. near the best of the rest the news last night's state of the union seemed to be a run of the mill speech and par for the course when it comes to the state of the union but then everything changed when president obama began to address the

epidemic of gun violence in this country speech went from ordinary to incredibly emotional just like that take a look ideas parents made clear are in this chamber tonight along with more than two dozen americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. they deserve a vote. thank you for your prayers. thank you reserve a group of boys over hood thank you very. much robert remembers her for advice from a reservist simply. yesterday before those stirring moments in the president's speech more than one hundred twenty family members of gun violence victims and

survivors survivors of gun violence were in washington d.c. to urge politicians to act to prevent future gun violence tragedies the group of unlikely lobbyists were various memorial will help ins and ribbons as they march through the halls of legislative office buildings and curried around photos of loved ones who were lost to tragic and totally preventable acts of gun violence one of those who reached out to aggression all members yesterday was lori us the virginia organizer for the coalition to stop gun violence and the education fund to stop gun violence perhaps more importantly lori has experienced first hand the pain and suffering that results from gun violence and the toll that it takes on families or joins me now in the studio lori welcome thank you for having me thanks for joining us you have a pin with the v.t. this is. my pen represents virginia tech and that mass shooting that occurred on campus on april sixteenth two thousand and seven that morning my daughter emily

found me and said mommy i've been shot and thrust my family into the gun violence world you know and how it touched our lives and frankly despite our pain and suffering you know we were one of the lucky ones which is kind of odd to say when your daughter's been shot but she lived and she's alive and well and when thirty two other people were killed. thirty two other families mourned their loved ones because someone got a gun. what was the message that you were sending to legislators yesterday what were you what were you saying. we want legislators to listen to us we want to be part of the conversation we want to stop the gun violence that just i mean it's every fabric of our society you know when children can't go to school when students can't be in a college classroom movie theaters and other places where we live in play and shop you know and lives are touched by gun violence repeatedly day to day to day

something is just tragically wrong with this society that we are not taking care of our loved ones we want to background check we talked to our legislators for five and a half years since virginia tech we want to background check on all buyers we want to know who is getting the gun we're not trying to stop law abiding citizens from owning a firearm we understand that goes is part and parcel of the second amendment but i would suggest that responsible gun laws to prevent dangerous individuals from having a firearm are not mutually exclusive with the second amendment in the one nine hundred twenty s. when we figure out the cars are going fast enough that they could cause accidents that killed people we start we said three simple things register them prove proficiency to use one get a driver's license and i'm sure that it's just. getting started i guess we already have i'm curious yesterday in your conversations you were here in washington d.c. anything stand out any but any any response that for better or for worse that you'd

like to share with those that you think is you know i think that the elected leaders are listening and you know that is a step in the right direction i think they're still caught up with the politics of inside the beltway you know americans don't care frankly you know about the politics inside the beltway we care about our children you know we care about our families our whole. spence our teachers you know we care about those people who are killed by guns in this country because we don't have a background check on everybody and we want to do what it takes to keep our friends our neighbors our family safe i'd you know i just can't imagine that people aren't willing to undergo a ninety second background check you can't it's harder to get a puppy at the pound than it is to get a firearm in this country it's really quite quite extraordinary do you see any. do you suppose it was actually let me rephrase it there was a spokesperson for the n.r.a.

yesterday the day before who said that they have this big legislative agenda you know is lobbying that they're going to do more politicians are going to buy you know i'm paraphrasing wildly of course. but they're going to put on hold for a little while because they're waiting for his phrase the come out at moment to pass do you think this could have a good moment is going to pass absolutely not absolutely not americans are offended and disgusted and just horrified and i believe president biden put it best just the mere thought of trying to imagine a six year old riddled with three six eight some children with a love and bullets their bodies were destroyed i think that it just brought it home for americans we collectively see ourselves as parents whether we have biological children or not we all care for our children it's been said it takes a village so you know when someone's child is injured or or sick or in this case

killed and murdered or somebody you know with a high powered semiautomatic weapon we're offended were disgusted and we're angry we're frankly angry we're demanding action of our congressional leaders it's been said that they might be fearful of the lobby or it takes courage to have a vote in their fear is not standing up to. the gun lobby that's a six year olds who lost their lives facing you know the bitter end and what is happening to me and encourages is my daughter facing the barrel of a gun and surviving and when i didn't temps and those teachers teaching standards those children that this current very house you are courage thank you thank you so much for me for that to be very great work that you're doing ok. now on to some good news about strengthening our democracy ever since the supreme court's citizens united decision in twenty turn our elections are now completely out of whack eccentric billionaires like the koch brothers and sheldon adelson spending

literally hundreds of millions of dollars investing in politicians to do their bidding they have endless negative ads paid for by shadowy super pacs or advocacy groups that can hide their donors meaning chinese business tycoons or saudi princes might be meddling in our elections for all we know but ever since the citizens united ruling and frankly even before a movement has been afoot around the nation to keep corporations out of our democracy led by move to amend dot org hundreds of cities across our nation have passed resolutions to overturn the supreme court's reckless decision and declare once and for all corporations are not people and money is not speech it is property and now this movement has hit the united states congress joining me for more on this is david cobb national spokesperson for move to a man david welcome and thank you tom it's always a pleasure to be on this program and i just want to thank you for acknowledging that the problem is corporations in our democracy it's not just an election this

horrible is that is it's the fact that these unelected and unaccountable institutions are running our culture our society and our government well and i think we saw an example that just a moment ago with with lori haas whose daughter was shot at virginia tech. this slightly somewhat different. she but it were seen the corporate corruption of our political processes congressman rick nolan and mark polk and have introduced the we the people amendment what to do. in essence it states clearly and unequivocally that only human beings have inherent and a little constitutional rights and that artificial into t's have legal privileges according to the statutory process that creates them sometimes i call this the well done and that because it just states what any six year old or any individual can understand that these corporations don't have the right to overturn public health public safety environmental protection or campaign finance laws the second thing it

does is to make it clear as you did that money is not speech and therefore local state and federal governments have the authority indeed i would say the responsibility to pass appropriate campaign finance laws to protect the integrity of the electoral process it really is both that simple and that profound because it addresses the fact that these an elected unaccountable corporations are stealing our sacred right to self government and what really just outrages me and your viewers and your listeners and people across the country of all parties and persuasions they're using our legal system to legalize the that this him and it will correct that and take us into an appropriate place in a constitutional democratic republic that says these are political decisions that need to be hashed out in the political process where we the people are meaningfully participating not in the courts where we the people just watch from the sidelines while the courts tell us how our country's going to operate so we have

a couple of two two members of congress who have introduced this amendment into congress it seems that this is really being driven by a grassroots movement and the grassroots movement is that they're responding to us rather than you know i was going to them. and then that's to honor them actually i mean that's their job. his representative in the constitution not leader. but how far how many communities have adopted these you know variations of this amendment or support of this amendment and where is a go how's that how is how is it going time if it's growing larger stronger and getting better organized than anything i've ever been part of and it's going deeper and i appreciate exactly your sentiment your correct that this is being driven by the grassroots and it's two representatives nolan and poke. great honor that they are taking the role that they are taking even recognizing that it's a grassroots movement and to answer your specific question almost five hundred

communities have passed these resolutions and we've now put it on the ballot in roughly twenty five jurisdictions across the country including places where republicans dominate the electoral process and tom in every single election we've won most of them in super majorities including in places in the last election where romney won by over sixty percent of the vote when it moved to mend a language is presented to the voters alongside other election matters we win so i'm telling you we're just getting started we're off to a roaring start and if folks have not joined yet i really want to encourage you to go to the web site. move to amend dot o.-r. g. to sign up because it's not merely a petition tom you know that's an organizing tool we're going to be in touch with you we're going to get you in touch with the over one hundred seventy five local affiliates that are springing up these are ordinary people doing something

extraordinary which is to do the educating work to do the analysis to rip away the sure that the layers that it is you should not use geisha this is a movement tom that we the people are going to take our country back it is it's great and powerful stuff david thank you so much for being with us. again you can help that movement by going to to move. after the break millions of americans making minimum wage struggle to survive day to day and are on able to properly provide for themselves and their families last night president obama suggested a nine dollars minimum wage which will help these americans to avoid poverty and to survive is a nine hour minimum wage even a possibility given today's political climate.